BG starting center Taylor Mattos is transferring out. 1 of 2 true bigs in the program and the better more experienced of the 2. michael turner is in the portal and considering a return to BG but with a half dozen big time offers elsewhere in front of him. their undersized backup big graduated. i see only the lithuanian who is a stretch 4 and the slow and massive swingle in the mix. they'll depend again on plowden at 6-5 outrebounding everybody. dylan frye, the sad faced kid , has graduated and for nothing else could make tough jump shots. their top guard off the bench graduated. if turner and mattos are gone too they are looking diminshed and young.

lots of hand wringing about our end of the bench guys transferring out early. but it ended up giving us a lot of advantages in spring recruiting. we kept our core (assuming marreon doesn't stay in the draft) and added talented depth. BG is losing a lot of key guys now and behind in recruiting.

I agree Pono. Thanks for posting and giving us things to think about during these crazy sports deprived times!

The fairly optimistic outlook for UT is predicated on Marreon Jackson’s return. If he doesn’t return then UT is forced to play all young guards at the point and we all know Keshaun cannot play the 1 position. If Marreon does grace us with his return then Keshaun can likely spend his entire season at 2. This is hopefully true since we are likely to find some young kid that can play pG out of 2 to total 3 pg recruits. The Illinois kid is a sure 1 position-wise.

We return:

Littleson
Acunzo
Edu
Maranka
Saunders
Jackson (?)
JC transfer @ 3

That’s a solid 6 to 7 man rotation and possibly 8 if Willie returns. The sky’s the limit if WJ is allowed back. ONE CAN DREAM! if one or 2 Freshman can chip in then depth could be a plus for UT. UT can still also potentially still add a HS or JC 1 or 2 and that helps even more. I’m sure we will RS any HS big man recruit outside of the most talented. A decent JC “big” Helps the short term for sure. The short vs long term program view is always a difficult choice for a coach but this decision is proving less difficult in this atmosphere of players transferring quickly if not given immediate PT.
I am optimistic about the future of UT basketball and so should all UT fans.

I love UT basketball as it has been a constant source of entertainment and university pride for many years. My life is richer for my my relationship with this program and it’s history.

interesting. good for huger. he's done a goos job there and to have had last year's team not play in the postseason, and then losing turner for the next one would have been a big blow. says a lot about their program that a kid like turner who is is graduating and can play anywhere would return there. gives him a chance to be the go to guy and have a legacy. now, losing mattos looks a bit different. he was serviceable but a poor fit with a faster group of teammates. still, bg is weak inside unless they pick up a good late recruit.

on the day we got the commit from komagum, central and OU got commits from juco pf/centers. each a little bigger guys than komagum. the OU recruit was pretty well recruited. and they also got a solid JMU transfer big who may be eligible. i'd say OU and Akron and BG are the teams to beat next season.